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More Than Food
LESLIE DING
Facing hunger with creative strategies
Food is the cornerstone of health, happiness and esteem. Yet 1 in 5 St. Louis children is unsure where the next meal will come from. Operation Food Search, the largest independent non-profit in hunger relief in the bi-state region, strives to heal the hurt of hunger through its food distribution and education programs. Working with over 250 partner agencies across 25 different counties, OFS acts as a “connector umbrella agency”. Its warehouse contains food, coats and personal items that were to thrown away by stores, donations from Clayton hospitals, restaurants, catering, conventions, food manufacturers, WashU and Food Drive. Every working day, volunteers come on regular basis and pick up boxes of donations. Each month, low-income individuals receive OFS’s nutrition services and food assistance through food pantries, soup kitchens, schools, shelters and senior centers. Besides being a food bank, OFS organizes nutrition education programs to empower low-income people with the skills and knowledge they need to reverse the neg-
ative consequences of poor diet and nutrition, such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes. Getting adequate food donation is just the first step. The hunger problem is a messy one. Judy Coyman, the Director of Community Relations at OFS, pointed out that “we need some creativity to tackle the problem”. To stretch the utility of its food donation, OFS initiated several programs with its creativity, which has yielded fruitful results. The most successful ones include Cooking Matters, Operation Backpack and Cooking Demonstration.
“We need some creativity to tackle the problem. ” —Judy Coyman. The Director of Community Relations..
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Cooking Matters
To some people, cooking is not a leisure activity but work, and eating healthy diet is not a fashion but a luxury. Cooking healthy food at home is a challenge for lowincome families, especially on weekdays. There are budget constraints, time constraints, and afterall, knowledge and awareness constraints. Each day, OFS gets different kinds of ingredients and people do not know what to do with them. Cooking Matters focuses on that kind of problem by providing series of two-hour basic culinary classes for teenagers, young pregnant moms, seniors suffering from diabetes and childcare professionals. Every class, nutrition educators including registered dietitians, professional chefs and volunteers teaches an inexpensive and
healthy recipe to participants. After each class, participants eat as a family - because “kitchen table represents a family” (Judy Coyman). Participants learn to use herbs rather than salt, beans rather than meat, baked chicken rather than fried chicken. They will also each receive a bag of food to take home after class to replicate the recipe again. This repetition ensures better learning. At one Cooking Matters class at the St. Louis Science Center, Leslie Bertsch showed kids a 5-year-old cheeseburger and fries. “Are we supposed to never eat fast food?” She said, “It is of course not practical. But we can change the way we order food. We could order smaller portions, leave off the cheese, order salad instead of fries, pure water instead of coke or milkshake.”
During class, student were divided into three group, each responsible for cooking a recipe. When they finished, they cleaned up, combined three recipes into one meal and ate together. 44
A: “My family used to eat crazy food. Having taken Cooking Matters, I cook more often on weekdays, and I make food healthier.” Me: “Great. But it takes more time to cook healthy food, right?” A: “Yeah, but that is worth it.” —Aleah Brooks. At Cooking Matters.
When kids finished their meal, they formed groups and created their own recipes. Aleah’s group came up with ingredients they like, crossed off unhealthy ones with the help of nutrition instructors, and researched recipes online to decide the exact portions of ingredients and improve the recipe. They managed to make a healthy brownie recipe with everybody’s effort. At one Cooking Matters class at the St. Louis Science Center, Leslie Bertsch, the Director of Nutrition Education at OFS, showed kids a 5-year-old
cheeseburger and fries. And she explained why fastfood should be “special occation food“ instead of daily food. Leslie admitted that changing diet is a slow process—we cannot cut back all at once. She suggests that we can change the way we order food. For example, we could order smaller portions, leave off the cheese, order salad instead of fried, water instead of milkshake. When kids finished their meal, they formed groups and created their own recipes. Aleah’s group came up with ingredients they like, crossed off unhealthy
ones with the help of nutrition instructors, and researched recipes online to decide the exact portions of ingredients and improve the recipe. Eventually, all the groups managed to create their own healthy recipes.
Students making an ice-cream burger during the group activity. Leslie taught them how to calculate calories, which turned the cooking class into a maths class. 5
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Operation Backpack
Most St. Louis-area students rely on free, reducedprice school lunches. Beyond school days, they are at risk of hunger. Operation Backpack is a 7-year-old program initiated by OFS which feeds hungry children by providing backpacks full of nutritious, kid-friendly food for the weekend. It is now covering 10 local elementary schools. Given the success of Operation Backpack, OFS is developing some spins on that, such as Healthy Swap, a program which encourages 8-18 year old athletes (transitional teen) to swap out fries and soft drinks with healthy food; Birthday in a Bag in which kids receive a bag containing cupcakes, toys and everything they need for a birthday; Summer Meal Program paired with library’s reading program in which people could stay, being nourished by knowledge and food. There are many success stories, but after all, the food issue stays a messy problem. There are lots of challenges waiting to be resolved.
“Operation Backpack not only eliminates hunger, but improves the participants’ academic performance, health as well as school attendance.” —Raichelle, School Social Worker. 66
Unhealthy Food Dilemma
There is an incongruity among what people need, what people want, and what people can get. People need healthy and nutritious food, yet sometimes they are not aware of the significance of healthy diet and turn to fast food for its lower cost. Boxes of chocolate chips and soda, leftover Easter candies—OFS frequently receive unhealthy food. To avoid discontinuity, OFS does not turn those things down because the manufacturer partner may be 7
producing other products that children need. But the long-term goal of OFS is to say NO to all the unhealthy food. Julia Fuller, the Agency Relation Coordinator at OFS, said: “It is a really fine line (between providing food people need and promote healthy diet). Pizza Hut make lots of personal-size pizzas before lunch rush and they donate whatever is left. We will take them but we don’t want people to eat too many pizzas. There
is also a company providing prison canteen and they have the big honey bun that contains 960 calories each. We feel bad giving them out. We know it is not a perfect system. But we should not stop working on this issue.”
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Hunger — A Silent Problem
There is so much shame involved with hunger. Sometimes teachers have to talk to high school students for hours for them to drink a can of soup because they are so ashamed of taking free food. They don’t want to be THAT kid. “If they choose not to have a voice, I have a voice and you have a voice.” Judy said, after she told us how they spot hungry kids miles away. Julia shares the same concern. She worked with homeless people before working for OFS and that front-line experience helps her know what people need— something they cannot buy on food stamps, such as paper towels, toothpaste and laundry detergent. The experience also helps her know what agencies have to do to be accessible to the public. City of Life is a food pantry that sets an good example of being accessible. We visited City of Life on April 4th. Starting at 7 am, volunteers set up the place like a grocery shop. At 9 am, people came in, took the shopping cart and selected what they need. Music was around and all kinds of food was around. Visitors feel respected while they were there.
City of Life has 33 to 40 volunteers every Saturday for the food distribution. With its space capacity, City of Life can double the amount of food being distributed with the help of just a few more volunteers. Other agencies as well as OFS are all calling for more volunteers so that they can serve more people in need. The amounts of funding and donations are also major constraints. Given the current level of donation, OFS can support 220 active agencies across 25 different county. There are still 190 agencies on the waitlist. To end hunger is an audacious goal. With that goal comes messy problems. Local non-profit organizations like OFS have been facing these messy problems with
creative solutions, but that force only is limited. To get closer to the goal, we need helps from volunteers, communities, and after all, changes in policies.
“If they choose not to have a voice, I have a voice and you have a voice.” —Judy Coyman. The Director of Community Relations.
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Food Distribution Day at the pantry City of Life
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